Madame X (Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau)

Her fingers press against the table while her head turns sharply away. The arm looks almost twisted by the pose. John Singer Sargent sets that small strain beside the smooth sweep of the black dress and the pale expanse of skin above it. The figure is carefully held in place. The sitter was Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, born in Louisiana. Sargent painted her in 1883–84 and showed the portrait at the public Salon exhibition in 1884. The right shoulder strap originally slipped down her arm. After the portrait drew criticism, he repainted that strap in the upright position you see now. Sargent kept the painting for more than thirty years. When he sold it to The Met, he asked the museum to conceal the sitter’s name, giving us the title Madame X. Now look back at her pose. Compare the hard edge of the profile with the soft light on the shoulder, then follow the narrow waist into the broad folds of the skirt. Sargent uses those different edges to shape the full standing figure.